Reviews --> Library Book Purchases

Last night I heard Linda Griffin, Fiction Collection Librarian for the San Diego Public Library explain how to coax libraries to buy your novel. Imagine this: it all comes down to getting the book publicly reviewed. But wait! Before you groan over a negative customer review on Amazon--they don't count. A negative review anywhere isn't so bad, either, Griffin said. "We love controversial books."

But wait some more! Before you get all happy faced about the negative reviews your book received from your local publication, ForeWord Magazine, or even The Midwest Book Review, consider this next nugget of information Griffen dropped on us: 95% of ALL books orders by libraries are based on reviews in only five publications.

Novelists must aim for reviews in:

Booklist - The American Library Association
Library Journal - Reed Business Information
Publisher's Weekly - Reed Business Information
Kirkus Reviews - Kirkus Reviews
The New York Times Book Review - New York Times Company

Griffen also repeated much of the bad news for writers that's been reported here (increasing competition, dwindling newspaper reviews, impossibility of even considering all books published, refusals to review/stock self-published books). I won't repeat it, having received a bad review myself for accurately repeating the same information offerred publicly by a former local paper's book review editor.

Literary Terminology for Writers

Don't know an ARC from a vet? They do seem related, right? Animals and all. Not in the definitions used by toilers in the literary field. Buried in the Slush Pile, a Texas lady editor self-described as "overworked, underpaid — Who could ask for anything more?", teamed up with Writer's Digest's Chuck Sambuchino to define some terms used by literary agents and editors. The editor's blog entries are here and here, Sambuchino's, here.

Keywords for Writing Websites

Did you ever wonder how many search engines scan the Internet? The search engine optimization (SEO) company Trellian claims to gather data on 36 billion searches performed on 200 search engines worldwide. Scroll down the referenced web page to see a list. Impressive, huh? Only three really matter, though, when it comes to fiddling with keywords.

If you have a website to promote yourself and/or market your writing (and every writer and book needs one), you should be concerned about keywords. They are are the text that search engine users type into the little rectangle next to the Search button. Part of the secret to raising your site's rank in search engine returns is knowing what keywords are most pertinent to your site's content.

Most new visitors to websites arrive via keyword searches. Once your site is up and running, don't take much of a break from optimizing. Frequently test your old and new keywords with the three top search engines. In July 2007, these were Google, Yahoo and MSN, according to Search Engine Watch, comprising 87% of all searches performed.

Build English Vocabulary

MSN's Encarta is bundled with my MS Word 2003 as the de facto dictionary. The Encarta website contains many useful articles and some funny quizzes. Don't try the President Bush's English Quiz, though. The links I tried went to an empty page. Oh, wait! Maybe that's the joke.

All kidding aside, I think "Ten Tips to Build English Vocabulary" is quite useful. Strategies to help memorize new words include:

• choose words you're interested in
• associate a color with each word
• use the words in your imagination
• write pieces using new words
• relate a picture to a word

It sounds a lot like advice for learning people's names--the relationships and use. Repetition is a powerful learning device. When I was learning a larger vocabulary, I bored people silly using the new polysyllabic terminology (big words) in conversations until they were cemented in my mind. The words, not people.

Speaking of MS Word, a client sent me documents in the newer .docx format. I dutifully downloaded and installed the Microsoft converters for my software version. Then I opened the client files. It worked--not so good. The process is like gestating elephants, long and difficult, at least for the computer. The results warn of format and permissions changes. I could not extract photos, at least not easily, and separate them from the documents. It's either time for me to upgrade or remember to start asking for files to be converted to my preferred format. Let's see, who's the parent here? No, scratch that. Who is in charge? What would you do or expect?

Manuscripts Going Green?

In a Publishers Weekly (requires subscription) E-Book Report blog posting E Slush Piles on the Way? David Rothman posed:

"Wouldn't it be better, for editors' sanity, not just forests, if slush [and submissions] arrived via e-mail or Web forms-as electrons rather than as unwieldy collections of atoms? Imagine, moreover, all the postage writers could save. If nothing else, publishers could regularly do word searches and even use special algorithms to help identify potential winners-for example by word-use patterns. Houses could contract with security firms to provide decent virus screening. So let's not dismiss the idea of a massive shift to e-submissions."

I have news for Rothman, a San Diego "author", Philip Parker, has elevated electronically automated book writing to, well, an art? See a video on his process, if you dare.

Going green, taken to extremes.

Formats for Manuscripts

We are in a transition period between working with paper and electronic files. Some publishers' editors and agents still want paper (and some want both), but most book manuscripts eventually go to a publisher via computers. "So what?" you may well ask. No aspect of manuscript formatting is more affected by the difference than the selection of the font to use.

Old style demanded a monospace typeface like Courier which looks like it is typewritten (see William Shunn's venerable advice, for example. Also Chuck Rotham). Others advocate something different. Amazing author Orson Scott Card writes:

But now that publishers are getting the final manuscript electronically, they can handle an ordinary proportional font. Times Roman is standard, but I use Bookman Old Style because the letters are so open and the text is warm and readable.

Don't get confused if you look at Card's web page, because it sports a sans serif font--looks like Arial to me--but that is a web page not a paper page, nor is it a manuscript. Well-known writer Moira Allen suggests:

The truth is, most editors really don't care, as long as the font is readable. (I can state this with confidence, having done a survey of about 500 editors; 90% expressed "no preference" with regard to font.) Very few editors will reject your manuscript because it happens to be in New Century Schoolbook, Palatino, or Times Roman.

If you look up these references, you'll also have all the directions (sometimes conflicting) that you need for all format issues. The point of all of them is to provide a document that is easy on the readers' eyes: margins control the line length and with double spacing and font size (12-point), the word count. All the rest is tradition and common sense to keep the pages tagged to the right author and in the correct order.

The hard part is to remember to do it, or to set up your word-processing program to do it automatically for you. And the title page is always different from all the rest. Simple?

Writer's Block of Fear

In twelve step programs, participants learn several mantras about fear and courage. For example, courage is just fear that has said its prayers. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyway. My favorite reminds me of junior high school:

Fear is

F alse
E ducation
A ppearing
R eal

Why am I talking about courage and fear in relation to a Writer's Block? Because often the true source of a temporary disruption in creativity is knotted up with one or more fears.

Finding the worm within can take a slow course, such as writing down any dream you have (even a daymare) and analyzing it, but then you risk the paralysis of analysis. In other posts we've already explored the critical voices from childhood whose echoes haunt the chambers of our minds. Contemporary sources promoting veiled fears can include an unsupportive significant other, a too-critical critique group, still living relatives who doubt your potential for success, and friends whose attitudes promote a budding writer's self-doubt.

Of all these undermining attitudes, the one that matters most is your own. Even if you are unaware of the negative messages your psyche is sending your mind to generate fears about writing, YOU ARE STILL IN CONTROL. You can effectively counter the fears by two types of action. Just like the old song says, "Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative."

Learn to use a list of affirmations about the successful writing career you envision. Fill your outer life with people who give your spirit a boost, understand your goals, and offer support. Yes, you may have to drop out of the family for a while, get new replacement friends, find a different critique group, join a gym, go for counseling if necessary. Just do it!

Editing Marks on Manuscripts

If you work with an editor who provides feedback on your paper manuscript, you may find some strange markings. Yes, you are expected to know what they mean. Usually called proofreading or proofreader's marks, while they may look like cute avatars, they have specific meanings about punctuation, spelling, placement and typography. For example, this: =^^= may indicate a cute kitty smile in a chat, but this: ^ could mean "insert here" or "make subscript", depending on the situation. You can see many proofreaders' marks and their meanings at this Chicago Manual of Style page.

Speaking of graphics in chats, make your marks tonight. Every Wednesday night, 8-11 pm EST, 5-8 pm Pacific Time, The Writer's Chatroom is open for a casual chat. Several editors, writers and readers drop in to talk about whatever topics strike their fancy. Sometimes even writing. Login by typing in you name, then click the "Login" button. No password needed, but Java is required on your computer.

Parents Reading for Children

Notice the title is not "parents reading TO children" for a change. On "Today", First Lady Laura Bush and daughter Jenna discussed what the Bush parents did to encourage their children to read. Jenna mentioned that her parents read rather than watching TV. Then she advocated that all parents should read

for as much time as they want their children to read.

Not reading to children, adults reading for themselves. Children emulate their parents' actions. Veg out before the TV, your kids will grow into couch potatoes. Read books, and your progeny will read books. O.K., maybe comics at first, but later graphic novels.

Now, go do as Miss Haueisen, our high school librarian taught: sit up straight, under good lighting, hold a book at a 45-degree angle to your eyes and about 18 inches away, and read. Read.

Get Business Writing Jobs

When the email arrived with the image and message below, I should have checked the calendar. It was March 31. Oblivious to the impending day for jokes, I read as serious:

LOS ANGELES - Apr. 1, 2008 - In an attempt to spark the economy through entrepreneurship and quell people's fears of unemployment, PerfectBusiness.com-a networking and resource Web site for entrepreneurs based in Los Angeles-is proposing an ordinance that will replace the numbers 9 and 5 with exclamation points.

Joking aside, I found the PerfectBusiness - The Entrepreneur Network Events page dovetailing nicely with some notions about how to use these gatherings to further a freelance business writing career. Look up all the events you can attend. Think of them as more than networking, as mass marketing opportunities for your writing/editing services. Here are some tips for success--suit up and show up with material that demonstrates your abilities:

• samples or copies of clips
• copies of your resume
• an ample supply of business cards
• specific practiced pitches
• comfortable shoes
• high energy

Many such gatherings publish maps and lists of participants in advance, so have targets selected and a strategy to maximize your time and energy. Go!

Fiction Writing Lessons

Successful novelist David Morrell shares some of his latest book on writing at Backspace. In an excerpt from THE SUCCESSFUL NOVELIST: A LIFETIME OF LESSONS ABOUT WRITING & PUBLISHING, Morrell sets us depressingly straight about becoming rich and famous as authors. Then he lets us in on the key to becoming a successful writer, the answer to the burning question: Why do you want to writer? But this goes deeper than the apt response of "because I have to" or as I say it, "I can't not write!"

In what Morrell calls "self-psychoanalysis", he advocates digging into your psyche to discover what you most fear, often a childhood trauma you're unknowingly trying to work out (or work out of your system) through your writing. Therapists who work with children from alcoholic, abusive, codependent (or dysfunctional, if you prefer) backgrounds are quite familiar with this behavior. We attempt to repair the damage through relationships we have for the rest of our lives.

One method for discovering what your trauma might be is to examine where you mind goes when your brain's on idle ... daydreams. Pleasant and horrific. This type of research has its advantages: it's right at hand and very inexpensive (a factor that universally appeals to writers). Morrell says, "Day-nightmares are messages from your subconscious, hinting to you what that ferret is about. They’re disguised versions of your secret. They’re metaphors for why you want to be a writer."

Download the whole article in .PDF or print out the text.

PC vs Mac Saturday Silliness

The current home page at Absurd Notions features Kevin Pease's hilarious takeoff of Apple's current advertising swipes at PCs. Unfortunately, I can't show you even a sample, because Pease definitely states, aside from his copyright notice, "All images are for viewing only and may not be used without permission." Well, I didn't have time to ask, so I won't violate him.

The gist of the joke (I think) is that PCs are upgradable, whereas Macs are ... you'll just have to see for yourself.

Oh, and at the bottom of another page I found this amusing copyright addendum: "Clue: If your name is attached to it, you have permission: that's what "copy-right" means. : =}"

Writing About Characters

Fragrances are what I think I'll miss most when I'm dead. I know that's an illogical statement, especially for an agnostic. Nonetheless, it's true. How my own home smells is comforting, and I don't want to lose that. And birdsong. I love living where singing birds surround my house, even in the winter.

I've had similar senseless, but emotionally true, thoughts in the 18 months following a cancer diagnosis. Facing death, one's own mortality, usually affects a person, changing their character. The changes are individual, but I think they intensify someone's basic personality traits. I hear women tell how they've become fearless, brave and bold, after enduring breast cancer. Not me! I'm scared and angry and tallying what will be taken from me when I die. But that's me, basically a depressed and selfish person, now more than ever.

When developing a character who experiences near death or confronts a similar danger, consider the consequences that could result to his or her personality. If you're writing realistic fiction and have had such an experience yourself, you'll know exactly what I mean. Lacking personal familiarity, you may want to talk with other people who have faced the threat of death, especially those living under its pall. Ask how it changed their feelings and actions, and how is that different from they way they were.

Editing Style for Cookbooks

A question often posed by both male and female beginning writers: how do you format a cookbook manuscript? How are recipes presented? In the many decades that I've been writing and cooking, I never gave this a thought, and I have an extensive collection of cookbooks and recipes. Indeed, after inheriting many from my mother and grandmother, I have an embarrassment of cooking literature. Most of it is easy to follow because it is fairly uniform in presentation. Difficulties show up most often in the home brew versions--collections put out by clubs as fundraisers, one of the original true self-publishing efforts.

One source of advice for cookbook authors comes from Ten Speed Press' Editorial Director, Lorena Jones. The "Ten Speed Press Cookbook Style Sheet" even offers tips on preparing an electronic file for submission to a publisher. The advice is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed; Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed; Recipes into Type, Whitman & Simon, and The New Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed, Herbst, if you want to go to the sources for more details.

Writing Book Review Pitches

"Newspapers have awesomely higher operating costs than the online publishers who are siphoning away their audience and advertising revenues," wrote Alan Mutter in his (presumably unedited) Reflections of a Newsosaur blog posting in February. He questioned the value and need for multiple editings of newspaper articles. That was about the time that the local paper's book reviews editor announced his departure from editing entirely.

Eventually the paper made known that the "Arts" editor would take on books, too. I predicted the two books pages (reduced from a multi-page stand-alone section) will disappear. Indeed, this week only one page of four book reviews appeared. The NY Times bestseller listings, already shrunk to only the top five, showed up on the back page with lists of what's hot in other media.

Authors, the writing is on the wall, and it's in book review editors' blood: don't bother trying for newspaper reviews anymore. Online is where it's at, the NY Times being exceptional. Some papers operate their online services separately from the print version and frequently offer more features on the Internet. Send your pitches there. This means, of course, that your pitch must be crafted as carefully as your opening book hook and/or the query that won you an agent.

Creating Characters Online

Some innovative methods to develop characters for your fiction, using partly free online services:

• sign up at a matchmaker like Chemistry, fill out the interminable questionnaire (save a copy of the questions and your responses) and save the resulting profile


• get a handwriting sample from someone like the character you are working with, and get an analysis from Sheila Lowe (warning: excruciatingly long questionnaire)


• visit TAAZ and play with redesigning a portrait photo for a limited idea of an appearance (works best for women)
  

Would it be unethical of you to use these services for this purpose? I don't think so, although I wouldn't encourage you to leave up the profile your create at the matchmaker's site, both for others' and your own sake.

Ladies: the TAAZ site is so fun! Made me look young and gorgeous. Did absolutely nothing for the turkey neck, however. You can see and hear more about this incredible software in a YouTube video.

Thinking Around a Writer's Block

You can look at a Writer's Block as a problem to be solved (rather than only wallowing in the drama and angst of the moment). Edward de Bono suggested that creative people need to incorporate lateral thinking into their repertoire:

We may need to solve problems not by removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in place. Edward de Bono

In an article for The Journal for Quality and Participation (Vol. 11-3), de Bono described types or categories of thinking that you can use to bypass your block:

Metacognitive -- thinking about thinking

Positive -- benefits and workability

Negative -- cautionary judgements

Provocative -- finding changes, alternatives

Informative -- assessing available facts

Intuitive -- unjustified feelings

I've redesignated the kinds of thinking because I find the metaphor of colored hats a weak tool, but feel free to research de Bono's "Six Thinking Hats" system for yourself. These kinds of thinking about your Writer's Block can be used in any order or sets. I've presented them here in a series that more or less alternates right-brain, left-brain functions to provide more opportunity to shake up your process and jog you into thinking along a lateral track to success.

To be or not to be a Booker

It must be nice to be an oil-rich country in the Middle East. Whatever you want, you get. Just buy it. Your country's novelists can't compete for the prestigious Booker Award because their books aren't in English? Don't pay for translations, buy a Booker for them! It's capitalism at its best as the UK Guardian reported in Existential crisis novel wins first 'Arabic Booker'. What's next? A Pulitzer, Nobel?

Copy Editing Rules

I wish I had seen the original when it first ran on the Des Moines Register website:

An article in the Des Moines Register by one Larry Ballard announced the other day that legislators were pondering a tax to be levied on lapses in grammar: "The tax would be levied on bad grammar in signs, advertisements, etc. It would target typos, misspellings, strange punctuation and dangling participles (they are nowhere near as painful as they sound) and would be enforced anywhere English is used."

That's the lede into The Baltimore Sun John McIntyre's take on editors as grammar cops. Seems to me that he is well-suited to lead raids, being the Sun's assistant managing editor for the copy desk, a past president of the American Copy Editors Society, and an adjunct instructor in journalism at Loyola College in Maryland.

A few years ago, I'll admit that I tried to cast myself in a policing role. Ever vigilant (or was that vigilante?) I spotted mistakes and pithily pointed them out to their owners. Nit-picking run amok. Eventually I realized that I really could not see the forest for the trees. The cliche; is true. I'd lost the meaning of messages by putting the focus on individual words and punctuation. This does not make for a good fiction editor at all.

Since that time, common sense finally knocked into my mind, I've relented and try to ignore the chatter of the interior editor and read for enjoyment and understanding. That is, unless I'm editing nonfiction, where grammar and syntax matter most.

Google Rank Returns, Other Rises

The Google Gods restoreth PageRank to A Writer's Edge! Apparently 3 is the new 5. That's the site's ranking in Google's new scheme to weed out Pay-Per-Post/Click bloggers and websites. I have never participated in those marginally unethical practices, however, to the Google Search system my page looked suspicious enough for them to pull MY rank last fall. (No one knows what formula was used to de-rank and re-rank sites.)

When Google dropped the rank, I cast about furiously for another ranking system and found a good one at SEOmoz.com. In that service's view, the page was a 4.5 to Google's 0. I'd hoped for the covet 6. Well, I have it now with SEOmoz! So, a Google 3 = SEOmoz 6? What does it really mean? A return of advertisers, I hope -- unless that's what Google was punishing me for, not using AdSense on the front page, but displaying ads from others. Call me cynical, but do call.

Writing with Adverbs

Quickly, think of an adverb. (Hint: the first word of this post.) The adverbs most often cited end in "ly". That's close, but not a comprehensive answer, because other words that don't end in ly are also adverbs. For example: most, often, well, sideways, edgewise, and very are all adverbs.

You may have heard adverbs described as words that modify a verb (the action part of a phrase). That is true, but still incomplete. Adverbs also modify adjectives and other adverbs. And an adverb isn't limited to a single word, sometimes appearing as a phrase or clause.

Adverbs modify other parts of speech by indicating factors such as where, what (extent or kind), when, how (much, frequently or often). Below are some examples with the adverbs italicized:

Rickie went slowly to the door.
Susan thought well of the teacher.
Doing the work too fast leads to mistakes.

The last one displays an adverb (too) modifying another adverb (fast).

Using adverbs frequently (there's one!) is out of fashion these days, at least in writing and according to some editors. Why? Because you can show the same effect by using strong, specific or colorful action verbs. This improves fiction writing, but there's nothing wrong with spicing up your nonfiction a little, and it can be a mainstay of creative fiction, whatever that is. Here's how, using the same three examples:

Rickie shuffled to the door.
Susan admired the teacher.
Racing through the work causes mistakes.

I like adverbs, as long as they don't prop up weak verbs like have, do, and forms of to be. Sprinkle them judiciously throughout your writing, and I'll let them pass.

The Editing Process

Several requests for information about editing services are flowing through my email lately. Often people ask about the process or, as one gentleman put it, "Can you tell me a little more about your mode of operation?" I'm always stumped as to what they are really asking. Do they want to know that I need to see a sample of the material, to know exactly what they want done with it, or that I ask for a down payment before starting work and use PayPal and accept local checks?

Or do they want to know that a document with more than ten pages must be on paper as well as in an electronic file, and that I use my brain and eyeballs as well as certain MS Word features (with or without comments and changes tracking as required); and that I make "notes to self" which become incorporated into a report at the end?

Maybe they are actually asking literally how to perform editing, especially a complex one with several aspects. In my style of work that means multiple passes through the text sometimes concentrating on the mechanics, other times for grammar and syntax, perhaps once searching out repetitions and another for the flow of the writing or concept and again for continuity.

I could design an entire website devoted to all the nuances of editing. In fact, the Bay Area Editors' Forum has done just that. Especially useful are the pages connected with What Do Editors Do? Incidentally, it is a very well-designed website, too, clean in appearance, logical in structure, and with excellent navigation.

When you ask an editor to tell you about how they work, what exactly do you mean? If you're an editor, let me know how you interpret such general questions or what information you think people are usually requesting.

Writing for Magazines

Whether you want to keep up with the onslaught of new magazines because you want to freelance to them or check out potential competitors because you want to start one of your own, have I the resources for you! First stop is to visit Mr. Magazine.com - The Official Site of Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni, Ph.D.. Husni is the experts' expert in what's happening with the mag world. To stay abreast of the news, don't miss his blog, apparently with the same name as his website.

Another resource for finding out about new mags is Magazine Yellow Pages. They even project launches as far as the third quarter of this year. It's also a subscription service with many features.

If you've been thinking about starting a magazine yourself, Husni provides a step-by-step free list of FAQs to help you get started, in addition to his book, Launch Your Own Magazine: A Guide For Succeeding In Today's Marketplace. Once you've determined your new enterprise's launch date, don't forget to let the Magazine Yellow Pages know by phone: 1-877-205-8061 or e-mail info@magazineyellowpages.com.

Blog Writing About Blogging Writing

If you like NY Times book review's Sarah Boxer's comprehensive look at Blogs, you might want to take a look at her book on the subject: Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks from the Wild Web (Vintage, 2008). The article provides a history of the genre(?), movement(?) and insights that had not occurred to this insider. Her writing makes me feel like I'm writing from inside a warm, pink, fuzzy bubble; living all inside my own mind. But wait! Maybe I am, for she ends the piece this way:

Blog writing is id writing—grandiose, dreamy, private, free-associative, infantile, sexy, petty, dirty. Whether bloggers tell the truth or really are who they claim to be is another matter, but WTF. They are what they write. And you can't fake that. ;-)

Other books on blogging mentioned in the article:

We've Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture
compiled and edited by John Rodzvilla, with an introduction by Rebecca Blood
Basic Books, 242 pp., $20.00

Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
by Lee Siegel
Spiegel and Grau, 182 pp., $22.95

Republic.com 2.0
by Cass R. Sunstein
Princeton University Press, 251 pp., $24.95

Blogwars
by David D. Perlmutter
Oxford University Press, 235 pp., $24.95

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
by Daniel J. Solove
Yale University Press, 247 pp., $24.00

We're All Journalists Now: The Transformation of the Press and Reshaping of the Lawin the Internet Age
by Scott Gant
Free Press, 240 pp., $26.00

Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World
by Hugh Hewitt
Nelson Books, 225 pp., $14.99 (paper)

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture
by Andrew Keen
Doubleday/Currency, 228 pp., $22.95

Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, foreword by Tom Peters
Wiley, 252 pp., $24.95

Blog! How the Newest Media Revolution Is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture
by David Kline and Dan Burstein
CDS Books, 402 pp., $24.95

Cluck if you Love Zombie Chickens

Received an intriguing PR splat for the genre-breaking, zombie chicken debut of Cluck: Murder Most Foul, 'heralded as "The Best Undead Chicken Novel of All Time" by Lloyd Kaufman, director of Poultrygeist, which we're sure has nothing to do with it being the only undead chicken novel of all time.' I laughed so hard, I just had to see if the book lives up to its hype.

Comedic horror--it's difficult to pullet off.